


keyframe

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Series: alone he staggered on (until he found dawns ghost) [3]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Forests, Gen, Hugs, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, Toby Smith | Tubbo and TommyInnit Run Away, Tommyinnit needs a hug, no beta we die like lmanberg, the strawberry dress makes an appearance, the working title for this was "trauma recovery but make it cottagecore", tubbo says fuck gender roles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27278584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: keyframen. a moment that seemed innocuous at the time but ended up marking a diversion into a strange new era of your life—set in motion not by a series of jolting epiphanies but by tiny imperceptible differences between one ordinary day and the next, until entire years of your memory can be compressed into a handful of indelible images—which prevents you from rewinding the past, but allows you to move forward without endless buffering.-Sure, sometimes it’s nice to wake up from a nightmare with more than just a wall in front of him, and sometimes it’s nice to have someone just pat him on the back or hug him or hold his hair back while he vomits, but Tommy needs his rest too. Tubbo isn’t the only one with nightmares. He shouldn’t force Tommy to wake up at two am every night just because a piece of coal he found reminded him of Eret’s sunglasses.He’s not a baby.(He dreams about the fireworks again. This time, it’s focused on Techno’s hands. They were shaking, Tubbo thinks. Or maybe he just wants to believe that they were shaking. That no one could do something like that steadily.“You’re a good kid, Tubbo,” Technoblade says, a few days before it happens. “Wilbur’s lucky to have you.”)
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, because if you ship real people, remember that not being punted into the sun is a privilege and not a right
Series: alone he staggered on (until he found dawns ghost) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1991026
Comments: 23
Kudos: 439





	keyframe

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this and Kenopsia in one day someone please help
> 
> oh yeah and you should read kenopsia before this because it does provide a lot of context

They don’t go to the jungle base. It’s too obvious. Instead, Tubbo and Tommy ride their horse and sleep in the woods for three days.

They find a clearing in the centre of an oak forest. A beautiful, flowery clearing, with a river running along the side. Tubbo smiles wide enough to ache and Tommy’s eyes sparkle. _This is it,_ Tubbo thinks. _This is it._

“Well?” Tubbo asks, turning to look at Tommy behind him. Tommy snaps out of his apparent trance and nods.

And they get to work.

_(A million years ago, they did the same thing on an island in the sky. Tubbo can feel the echo of those footprints beneath him as he remembers. He wishes he could dream of it.)_

It takes weeks. Tubbo is glad that it’s summer because he knows they would have frozen to death by now if it weren’t. But finally, after weeks of work _(Weeks of building and weeks of fear and weeks of wondering if they’d been followed)_ the house is finished. It’s only enough room for the two of them, but it’s finished.

At first, they sleep on opposite sides of the same mattress. But Tommy is too light a sleeper to not get up every time Tubbo wakes crying. So Tubbo makes a new mattress and moves it to the other side of the house.

“You talk in your sleep,” Tubbo says. “You keep me up all night.” He thinks they both know the real reason that Tubbo’s moving beds, but neither of them wants to say it. That’s fine with Tubbo.

Sure, sometimes it’s nice to wake up from a nightmare with more than just a wall in front of him, and sometimes it’s nice to have someone just pat him on the back or hug him or hold his hair back while he vomits, but Tommy needs his rest too. Tubbo isn’t the only one with nightmares. He shouldn’t force Tommy to wake up at two am every night just because a piece of coal he found reminded him of Eret’s glasses.

He’s not a baby.

_(He dreams about the fireworks again. This time, it’s focused on Techno’s hands. They were shaking, Tubbo thinks. Or maybe he just wants to believe that they were shaking. That no one could do something like that steadily._

_“You’re a good kid, Tubbo,” Technoblade says, a few days before it happens. “Wilbur’s lucky to have you.”)_

-

It’s on a too-hot day, a month after they’ve finished the house, that Tubbo and Tommy go swimming in the river. Somewhere in between splashing each other and bickering and attempting to catch fish, they start playing tag.

It’s ridiculous, Tubbo thinks. They’re not little anymore; They’re sixteen. But Tubbo can’t remember the last time he and Tommy really acted like teenagers _or_ little kids. Life has just been a blur of adult problems- of fighting and elections and night terrors. And for once they’re not soldiers in over their heads or right-hand men talking down mad leaders.

They’re just two friends on a warm summer day, playing in the water and laughing. And that feels more like freedom than L’Manberg ever did.

-

_(Tubbo’s dream tonight starts with Bad. It’s a familiar memory. Sitting on Bad’s couch, watching him throw knives into a target-board on the wall. “Things don’t always work out how you want them to,” Bad says as he pulls his arm back, “and that’s okay! Sometimes, it’s just about…” He goes quiet as he throws the knife. It hits the double twenty. “Sometimes, it’s just about trying. Even though things aren’t going your way, you’re still trying to make the most of it.”_

_Tubbo pulls his legs further to his chest. That’s not what he wants to hear, not at all. He doesn’t want Bad to tell him to make the most of it, to be optimistic and smile and dance around Tubbo’s feelings to make sure no one gets cut. He just wants someone to hug him and tell him that Wilbur will come to his senses. That Tommy will be back soon. It makes him feel right pathetic, but he just wants someone to tell him without a hint of a lie that it’s going to be okay._

_Bad offers Tubbo a dart, but before Tubbo can shake his head the scene is morphing._

_“Welcome, gentleman, to the Final Control Room.” The dark voice seems like it’s coming from everywhere at once. Tubbo can’t see anything but Eret’s hand, extended as if offering Tubbo to take it._

_Tubbo tries to warn his friends, standing around him with no idea of what’s coming, but his voice is nowhere to be found._

_Eret presses the button, and pitch-black water floods the room. It devours everything until it’s just Tubbo and Eret floating through the void._

Do you regret it? _Tubbo thinks it as hard as he can, hoping to get around his lack of voice. Eret’s glasses are gone. Their eyes pierce through the darkness like twin beacons._ Wilbur can’t walk for too long without a limp and I can’t raise my left arm above my head and that’s your fault and I have to know if you regret it.

_Eret’s eyes explode into a menagerie of colours and light, and Tubbo feels his ribs catch fire. Techno’s hands are steady. Tubbo is the only thing shaking.)_

-

He wakes up with a scream in his throat.

It doesn’t get out all the way, stuck in the back of his mouth in between the spit and the tears and the bile. Before he can even take a breath he’s running outside and vomiting into the bushes. Someone’s hand gets in his hair and Tubbo tries to swat them off before he feels the lining of the bandages and realizes it’s Tommy. Then, he goes back to being sick, letting Tommy brush his bangs back and whisper gentle nothings.

Finally, when Tubbo quiets down, he hears what Tommy’s saying. “Shh, Tubbo. Come on, calm down now. It’s alright. It’s alright.”

He sounds like Wilbur.

Tubbo clears his throat. “‘M sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t,” Tommy says without hesitation, “I was already awake.” Tubbo is supposed to be the older one here, isn’t he? So why is Tommy acting more mature than him? Tubbo closes his eyes until Tommy nudges him with a boot. “Sun’s almost up anyway. Wanna watch it?”

Tommy brushes his hands off on his jeans, rocking onto the balls of his feet. Tubbo’s an idiot. Tommy clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing either.

“Yeah, that sounds really nice. Thanks.”

Tommy slides into his bit like it’s a second skin. “What would you do without me?”

  
  
But Tubbo isn’t joking when he replies “No idea.”

-

They find a village about an hours walks away. They trade for new clothes and blankets and seeds. Tubbo starts a garden in their front yard and makes friends with the local honeybees. Tommy tries to chop down trees on his own, fails, and gets Tubbo to help. But it doesn’t take him long to master how to do it by himself.

Their house expands. Tubbo trades a villager some honeycomb for a pretty, strawberry patterned dress. He can’t wear it most days, it's too hard to move in for good garden work, but it’s perfect for sitting by the river and relaxing in. He likes the small freedom of choosing what to wear. Schlatt and Wilbur wouldn’t have let him wear a dress or an ill-fitting t-shirt.

Another thing that Schlatt and Wilbur would have hated: He adopts a pet chicken, much to Tommy’s chagrin.

“Look at his little face! I have to keep him.” Tubbo stares up into the eyes of the chicken that is currently resting on his chest.

“He’s gonna shit all over the house, Tubbo.”

“Tommy…” Tubbo puts on his best puppy dog eyes.

Tubbo keeps the chicken.

Things are better.

-

One night, he’s up late, staring at the ceiling, when he hears rustling blankets. Too much rustling for Tommy to be sleeping like he was the last time Tubbo checked on him. Nightmare.

Tubbo pushes himself up and stumbles over on sleepy legs. He crosses the room and kneels beside Tommy’s bed, and he’s close enough now to hear the mumbling that always starts whenever Tommy has a nightmare. Nothing intelligible comes out of his mouth, but it all sounds distressed.

“Tommy,” he whispers. “Tommy, wake up. Wake up. It’s just a nightmare, it’s alright.” Tubbo is about to repeat himself when Tommy’s eyes jump open. He’s quieter about waking than Tubbo ever is. His eyes are wide and darting around and he isn’t breathing enough but he’s hardly making a sound.

As soon as his eyes focus on Tubbo, he lurches forward. Tubbo is almost knocked over the force of the hug, but he barely keeps himself steady.

“It’s okay, you’re okay. We’re okay, Tommy. We’re in our house in the forest, just you and me. We're okay.”

“You were gonna kill me,” Tommy mutters. Tubbo stops rubbing circles between his shoulder blades. “Schlatt was gonna make you kill me.”

“I wouldn’t have done it.”

And Tommy says nothing. Tubbo lets go of the hug.

“I wouldn’t have done it. You know that.” _You have to know that. I can’t live with myself in a world where you don’t know that._

“What if he made you? What if he held you at sword-point, or- or-”

“I wouldn’t have done it.”

Tommy looks at him with the pinched up expression he gets before he cries. “But-”

“We’re friends forever Tommy, remember?” Tubbo grabs Tommy’s hand and locks their pinky fingers together, tears welling up in his eyes. “Pinky promise.”

And then they’re just two teenage boys, kneeling together and hardwood floor, pinky promising like five-year-olds and balling their eyes out. Tubbo goes in for the hug this time.

“Pinky promise,” Tommy pushes out, between the ugly sobs and voice cracks.

_Pinky promise._

-

When Tubbo was sixteen years old, waking up from a nightmare, Wilbur Soot told him that it didn’t get better.

Wilbur's eyes were world-weary, his scars old and new. His hands never quite lost their tremor, and his heart never quite opened up. And Tubbo looked to his leader, this picked-at scab of war that had never healed over, and he believed it.

But it’s been a year since they won the war. Since Wilbur told him that some wounds are permanent. It’s been a long year, and nothing has really healed yet, but that doesn’t mean that the process hasn’t started. It doesn’t mean there isn’t more to go.

Tubbo and Tommy watch the sunset. They don’t have a bench anymore, or a good view of the kingdom, but they still have Mellohi and a chicken, and a house they built all by themselves. They still have each other, as unlikely as that should have been.

And, reaching out to grab Tommy’s hand, Tubbo figures that Wilbur’s been wrong before.

**Author's Note:**

> comment to give my dog the ability to dance


End file.
